Tuesday, July 13, 2010

". . .we can hang our heads in shame for the future of the left."

Edward Herman and David Peterson have written a very short book that's not nearly short enough. It should never have seen the light of day. It brings shame to its two American authors, its publisher Monthly Review, and all those who have provided enthusiastic jacket blurbs, many of them prominent in progressive circles – Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, Norman Solomon, David Barsamian. If this is what Anglo-American Marxism, or socialism, or anti-imperialism has degenerated into, we can hang our heads in shame for the future of the left.

Why a lifetime anti-imperialist leftist like Herman (and presumably Peterson) wants to exculpate the Serbs of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia of crimes against humanity is beyond my understanding. Why would it not have been enough to point out that appalling crimes were committed by all sides, but in every case Serbs were one of those sides? The only conceivable reason seems to be that the US and its allies singled out the Serbs for attack, which ipso facto makes them the real victims. Indeed, the authors' ally Christopher Black perversely sees Milosevic as an heroic figure. . .

"The Security Council is all about consensus. If all the countries, in particular the big countries, make an agreement between them, they stop the conflict in a second," said Moreno Ocampo. "What happens is, Darfuris have no oil, nothing, really, so no one cares, really. That's the problem."

Not unrelated: The German wing of the IHH - one of the bankrollers of the recently ill-fated Gaza flotilla - has just been banned as a Hamas-fundraising terrorist organization after a n investigation that long preceded the flotilla fiasco. Elsewhere, the other major flotilla sugardaddy, Malaysian crackpot Mahathir Mohamad, is giving out with his usual Jew-baiting hysteria: On the question on the Government and people of Malaysia is standing strong against the Neo Con Jewish controlled media which is distorting facts, spinning and spreading lies, especially with regards to Israel but instead there are Malaysian politicians like partyless-Opposition-Leader Anwar “Mat King Leather” Ibrahim trying very hard to ‘Earn back his position’, “He will go to the extend to buy space in CNN to show he is loyal to his Jewish masters. If he is loyal to his Jewish masters, then he would not be loyal to Malaysia”.

13 Comments:

Peterson and Herman might be flunkies for Ahmadinejad but that pales in comparison to Terry Glavin being a flunky for George W. Bush, who is responsible for the death of over one half million Iraqis. Ahmadinejad is reprehensible but he never invaded another country and unleashed death and destruction on a civilian population.

Terry you failed to mention that there are many other flotillas planned, including one with all jewish passengers, that boats have been boarded by Noble Prize winners, that Mandela and the elders have spoken in favour of the ships mandates, and that the goal of the flotillas to break, puncture, an inhumane boycott and siege of Gaza'a population is, in fact, entirely honourable. That you focus of the politics of Islamist organizations behind the flotilla instead of the violent army who hijacked a boat, killing 9 people, and maintains a siege condemned the word over is bizarre to say the least. That widespread ignorance about the Palestinian conditions under Israeli rule, in which nonviolent protesters are regularly shot and imprisoned, in which Israel controls by land over 42 per cent of the West Bank, in which it perpetuates ever worse atrocities on a population it rules, has created a 'revolutionary" feeling among many Arabs who look at disgust at whats happening to Palestine is in fact not surprising. Even liberas hawks like Peter Beinart and Andrew Sullivan have realized the brutal reality of Siraeli violence staring them in the face. How many Palestinians have been killed by Israel this decade Terry and whats the figures the other way around? Who is occupying who? I hate to be this basic but come on. The condescension and reversal of victim and aggressor is crazy.

If the massacre in Gaza, or Goldstone report which you described as illegitimate because the population of the occupying power didn't in unison rally behind it even though many Israelis did and Palestinains too, or the daily reports by B'tselem, or the criminal hijacking of the flotilla, or decades on decades of fundamental denial of the rights to an indigenous, continually dispossessed population isnt waking you up than I fear you're in a deep and frankly sad state of permanent slumber.

Caplan in this review writes "American support for Israel's repression in Gaza and destruction in Lebanon, the American role in the brutal massacres of Guatemalans and Salvadorans in the 1980s, America's backing for Indonesia's blood bath in East Timor – all are true, all are appalling, and all have been thoroughly documented. No doubt it's good for a new generation to be reminded of these atrocities, invariably distorted or ignored by the mainstream media." Actually the first example is regularly distorted or elaborately denied by our host here even when white phosphoris burns the skin of kids in Gaza. Terry I find it odd that given your positioning on Israel/Palestine and your lack of critical fire towards the occupying power that you would rush to approve of Caplans view. Do you agree that America's support for Israel's repression in Gaza and destruction of Lebanon is "invariably distorted or ignored by the mainstream media." Just curious

So when "the left" makes apologies for/celebrates Milosevic we can "hang our heads in shame" but when the right apologises for/celebrates Milosevic--i.e the case of Lew Mackenzie--we make them our allies, as Glavin has recently done?

Well mental is the idea that Lew Mackenzie "apologises for/celebrates Milosevic" - either of which would be a transgression rather distantly this side of whackjob genocide denial anyway - and I have "made allies" with him because we appeared on a panel together. That's well mental.